Chapter 18 #2
A sharp knock on my door startles me from my spiraling thoughts.
I wonder if it’s Hannah stopping by to say goodnight. The sumptuous Persian rug is soft underfoot as I pad to the door, the brass doorknob cool in my hand as I turn it and pull the heavy wooden door open.
“Oh.” I gasp a little in surprise when I see Romulus’s hulking form filling the dimly lit hallway instead—all wings and muscles and barely controlled tension. “It’s you.”
“Who were you expecting?” His voice is rough. Then he waves a hand, his eyes seeming to darken as they flick over me. “Never mind. I just wanted to check that you have everything you need before I retire to my rooms for the evening.”
I can’t help leaning against the doorjamb and arching an eyebrow at him. “I thought I was in your rooms.”
He swallows hard, his throat working. His eyes travel down to my neck—lingering on my collarbone, the swell of my breasts barely contained by silk—before he jerks them upward as if physically forcing himself not to check me out in my slinky nightgown.
I feel confused by my disappointment that he didn’t look longer. I’m here for Remus... Aren’t I?
“I don’t sleep,” he says, voice strained. “I spend the nights reading in the den.” He gestures with his head further down the hall, where warm light spills from beneath a door.
Ah. Of course. He only sleeps when Remus is awake. Which, again, makes me suddenly long for the wild, reckless man I first met. The one who made me feel alive and wanted and brave.
While Romulus stands there rigidly in front of me, I rush around to the back of him on impulse.
When he starts to turn around to ask, “What are you—?” I put out a hand on his shoulder to still him—feeling the heat of his skin through the thin sleep shirt he’s wearing.
Instead of answering, I lift my hand up to Remus’s sleeping face on the back of his head.
I breathe in shakily, feeling a sharp dart of pain in my chest right along my sternum as I caress down his cheek. His skin is warm, slightly rough with stubble. I run my thumb along his bottom lip, remembering how that mouth felt on mine.
“I miss you,” I whisper into the dim hallway.
There are only a few iron sconces lit along the stone wall at uneven intervals, casting flickering shadows. So when Remus’s eyelids flutter, at first I’m not sure if it’s just a trick of the lights.
And then their tail comes alive—wrapping firmly around my waist several times, pulling me closer against Romulus’s back.
“What’s happening?” Romulus asks, alarm in his voice. “That wasn’t me.”
“Remus?” I ask breathlessly, reaching up on tiptoes to excitedly kiss his sleeping lips. They’re warm and soft and so familiar. “Remus?”
But when I pull back, he sleeps on, face peaceful. The tail around my waist goes slack, unwinding, and my heart drops to my feet like a stone.
I sigh heavily and walk back toward my door, defeat settling over my shoulders.
Which is when I happen to glance down and see that—whoa, damn.
Romulus is wearing thin cotton pajama bottoms that do absolutely nothing to hide the massive erection jutting out, tenting the fabric obscenely.
“Is that you?” I ask with a little gasp, unable to stop myself from staring.
Romulus reaches for my waist with both hands and pulls me to him in one swift motion—right up against his hardness. The rigid length of him presses against my belly through our thin layers of clothing.
We both groan—I think. I’m not quite sure because suddenly our faces are close to one another, just inches apart. His breath is hot against my lips.
His body feels so familiar—the same body I’ve already been intimate with—and mine instantly reacts. Heat floods through me, pooling low. My nipples tighten against the silk.
Romulus’s eyes are dark and wild, pupils blown wide with want. Both of us breathe heavily for several charged moments, the air thick between us.
Is he about to—? Do I want him to—?
My eyes dart down to his lips—full but not as wide as his brother’s, I notice—and my tongue darts out to wet my bottom lip in anticipation before I can think better of it.
But then reality crashes in and I jerk away, turning with a strangled, “Wait.”
“Good night.” He’s gone before the words fully register, and the door to the den slams shut with enough force to make the sconces flicker.
I stand there staring at his closed door for probably longer than I should, breathing hard, heart pounding. Waiting. For what, I’m not sure. An apology? For him to come back? For the world to make sense again?
And when I finally drag myself to bed, I toss and turn, my mind on overload. My body still humming with unfulfilled want. The sheets feel too hot, then too cold. I can’t get comfortable.
Just when my eyelids finally start to feel heavy, and I think I might actually be able to fall asleep, I hear the soft creak of my door opening.
With a start, I sit bolt upright in bed, heart leaping into my throat.
And there he is—the shadow of Romulus’s massive form headed toward me in the darkness, wings creating an even larger silhouette against the moonlight streaming through my window.
My hand fumbles for the lamp on the nightstand, knocking over something that clatters. He’s nearly at the bed before I find the switch and turn it on, warm light flooding the room.
When I do, my heart leaps to my throat when I see the face of the man who’s come into my room.
“Remus!” I cry, throwing my arms around his neck. Thank god. Thank god.
“Shh,” he says urgently as he embraces me roughly in return, his arms like steel bands around me. “I don’t want to wake him. I’ve only just gotten myself back. How long have I been gone?”
But before I can answer, he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
And then he’s kissing me, and I’m kissing him back desperately. I’ve missed him so much—the ache of it a physical thing in my chest. It was so easy to question everything while he was gone, but now that he’s back in my arms, solid and real and here—
Half of me is sure I fell asleep and this is a dream. I don’t want to question anything too much in case I wake up, even though I want to ask him a thousand things.
But he’s holding me in his arms again in that way that is so distinctly Remus. Possessively, like he’s claiming me. Like this is the way we were always meant to be together.
“I’ve missed you,” I breathe out against his mouth.
And then his lips cover mine completely, swallowing any other words. We kiss each other with more passion than I knew a body could possibly hold—desperate and hungry and almost violent in its intensity.
I groan low when his hands wander down my body, mapping every curve like he’s memorizing me. The flat end of his soft, leathery tail whips around to slide up the inside of my thigh underneath the nightgown, lifting the silk.
When he starts kissing down my neck to my breasts, I grab his broad shoulders, loving the strength in them. Knowing I should make him pause.
“There’s so much we need to talk about,” I whisper, half whimpering from the rising excitement of his body pressing against mine as he crawls onto the bed between my legs, settling his weight.
God, even just the weight of him there against me almost has me coming. The pressure. The heat. The familiarity.
“So much has happened. I’ve met your family, and Romu—”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Remus growls, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine. “It’s just you and me here.” He lifts his face toward me, expression deadly serious for a moment before he extends his wickedly long tongue to lick my nipple through the thin silk of my nightgown.
The sensation makes me arch off the bed.
The next second, he tugs down the fabric roughly, exposing my puckered nipple to the cool night air.
“Fuck,” he hisses reverently. “You’re so beautiful. I dreamed of you the entire time I was asleep. You drive me absolutely mad.”
He dips his head, and the screwed up thing is that I can just glimpse Romulus’s sleeping face when he does, and I wonder... is he dreaming of me too?
“Remus, I’m serious.” I try to sit up, but he holds me in place with his hands, strong fingers kneading my hips. “We need to—”
“I am too,” he growls, the sound sending heat straight to my core. “You want to talk, we’ll talk. But first, let me pleasure and taste you. Please.”
He looks up, and his eyes are heavy with a longing that seems deeper than just lust. More desperate. More raw. He wants to reconnect with me in this most basic of ways—body to body, skin to skin.
And if I’m honest, I want it too. Desperately. My body’s been warring with my head since I saw his shadow in my bedroom.
Because I want him desperately.
The only thing is—I wasn’t sure when I saw him come in if it would turn out to be Remus or Romulus. Either way, I knew I wanted them like this. Hands on me, bodies thrusting together, sweat mingling and breath hitching.
That feels... wrong somehow, doesn’t it? Or maybe it’s the fact that it doesn’t feel wrong that feels wrong. You’re only supposed to want one man at a time unless you’re on The Bachelorette or something.
And even then, they still have to pick someone in the end.
“Don’t think,” Remus says, reading my face perfectly. “Just feel.”
I breathe out in a long hiss as he grips my inner thighs, his thumbs massaging circles into my sensitive skin as he draws my legs open. His hands are underneath my silk nightgown now, pushing it up to my waist.
The sharp inhale of his breath tells me he’s just discovered I’m not wearing any underwear.
“Was this for me?” he asks, voice a heavy rasp that immediately gets a harsher edge as he finishes, “Or for him?”
“Don’t do that,” I warn, feeling my desire cool slightly. “Don’t pit me against you two.” I start to pull away from him. “Because that is not a game I’m interested in playing.”
This is all way more confusing than I ever could have anticipated.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please stay.” There’s genuine remorse in his voice.